GENEVA, Feb 17 — The United States and Iran hold indirect talks in Geneva on Tuesday aimed at resolving their long-running nuclear dispute, with little clear indication of compromise as Washington masses a battle force in the region.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will take part in the negotiations, which are being mediated by Oman, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters, alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
US President Donald Trump said that he would be involved "indirectly" in the Geneva talks and that he believed Tehran wanted to make a deal.
"I don't think they want the consequences of not making a deal," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday.
"We could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s in to knock out their nuclear potential. And we had to send the B-2s."
Tehran knows that a previous attempt to revive talks was under way in June last year when Washington's ally Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran, and was then joined by US B-2 bombers that struck nuclear targets. Tehran has since said it has halted uranium enrichment activity.
The US military is preparing for the possibility of weeks of operations against Iran if Trump orders an attack, two US officials told Reuters.
Iran itself began a military drill on Monday in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital international waterway and oil export route from Gulf Arab states, who have been appealing for diplomacy to end the dispute.
Tehran and Washington renewed negotiations on February 6 on their decades-long dispute.
Washington and its close ally Israel believe Iran aspires to build a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel's existence. Iran says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful, even though it has enriched uranium far beyond the purity needed for power generation, and close to what is required for a bomb.
Unlike last time, the US has now placed what Trump calls a massive naval armada in the region.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a news conference in Budapest that it was hard to do a deal with Iran, but the US was willing to try.
